Policy —

Third P2P verdict for Jammie Thomas: $1.5 million

Judge Michael Davis has already ruled that anything over $54,000 would be " …

The first P2P case to come to trial in the US has lasted five years and now has three verdicts, this one coming after just two hours of deliberation. Jammie Thomas-Rasset must pay $62,500 for each of the 24 songs at issue in the case, for total of $1.5 million.

"We are again thankful to the jury for its service in this matter and that they recognized the severity of the defendant's misconduct," said the RIAA after the case wrapped up. "Now with three jury decisions behind us along with a clear affirmation of Ms. Thomas-Rasset’s willful liability, it is our hope that she finally accepts responsibility for her actions."

The damage award remains staggeringly high—this is two CDs of music we're talking about—but it's still $400,000 less than the previous $1.92 million damage award from Thomas-Rasset's last trial.

To put that in context, consider the four file-sharing jury awards issued in the US to date:

On a per-song basis, none of these are all that close to each other; are juries doing anything more than plucking amounts from the air here?

A better question might be: why are every one of these amounts so much above the limits set by Judge Davis here in Minnesota and quoted by Judge Gertner out in Massachusetts? Davis has already ruled that $2,250 per song is the most that can reasonably be assessed without veering into "monstrous and shocking" territory, meaning that he won't allow more than $54,000 against Thomas-Rasset (Judge Gertner has accepted the $2,250 per-song number too, already slashing Tenenbaum's verdict based on it).

The huge disparity between what judges (who see all sorts of awards) and juries (who know almost nothing about them) has been a key feature of these cases, and the massive award today is certain to set Judge Davis off once more. Which may explain why, after the verdict was read out, he simply smiled a wry smile and walked right out of court, shaking his head the whole way.

So will we be doing this again? I asked Thomas-Rasset's lawyer, Kiwi Camara, about his reaction to the verdict. "Groundhog Day," he said.